Haven't commented much before on the forums, and haven't played A24 yet (Steam is just updating it as I type), but I feel compelled to comment after watching the video.

I can appreciate that there's been some fairly major internal changes gone on under the hood in order to support the modding system, and that sometimes redesigning/restructuring things has to be done at some point, but how many players actually use mods? I don't, and I'm not sure how cost-effective it would be to either make mods, or develop prisons heavily using mods, when things are liable to change each month and potentially break previous mods. So although Chris acknowledged there'd been something he's been working on which didn't quite work out, this leaves just one real change this month - the prison snitches. And while no doubt fun to play with at first, I can't see them radically altering a well-run prison.

I'm really surprised that more features and item types haven't been implemented, as there are so many requests and good ideas floating around the forums. Surely things like the size of a prisoner's cell should have an effect by now, as well as the amount of stuff in it. A bare cell of 2×3 with nothing but a bed and toilet would provide no recreation needs and make the prisoner very pissed off during bangup or lockup, and slightly pissed off for all routine activities in there (sleeping, free time, etc). Whereas a larger cell with bookshelf and tv and comfy chair would make the prisoner much more amenable and lessen the negative consequences of the prisoner having to spend time in there - with the obvious disadvantages of the extra space required, extra cost of building materials and the cell contents, the extra time taken to search the extra hiding places etc.

Or perhaps it's time to look at introducing a rudimentary gang culture. Maybe they could start with a few prisoners (perhaps those who's cells are already near each other and share some hidden traits) and gradually expand depending on the needs of the prisoners - those who are quite content with the regime are more resistant to joining the gang, those who are seriously pissed off against "the system" would join very readily if they have the right traits in common with the rest of the gang. Prisoners within a gang choose to spend time around each other and over time, sections of the prison (a corridor, a wing, a yard etc.) could end up becoming that gang's turf where other prisoners are reluctant to go, and where prisoners from rival gangs would be in danger. An extra benefit of the new snitches could be to provide a partial "heat map" of gang territory and activities, the cost would be that the snitch would be in *extreme* danger from that gang when you act upon the snitch's knowledge to start breaking up the gang by re-homing key prisoners etc. The player wouldn't ever really know the gang's shared hidden traits (cos they're, well, hidden) or the exact extent of the gang within your prison, you would just have to observe it through their behaviour and the snitches.

These are just my thoughts, but I feel they're the kind of things needed to keep the game evolving nicely with new challenges that actually affect the way you play. It's an awesome game but the focus/choice of the updates has left things feeling a bit stale for a few months now. :-/

P.S. Have the reform programs been fixed or are prisoners still puking everywhere constantly?

Ok, extended mod support is nice and will become important part of the game in some point yes. Only i afraid this came too soon.. Lazy developer syndrome which bugs games with too active community is lurking around the corner.(This happened to ArmA III)

But couple of major bugs which were introduced at update 23 are still there making this game, maybe not unplayable but boring to play. Yes, drug and alcohol program and no escort to holding cell bugs are still there and food is still delivered to the storage if it is searched by guards. I haven't seen overdoses nor escape tunnels either. It feels like we went back to the alpha 17? and are still there.

Also bring back the spoons to the canteen! This was not the right way to solve problem with stealing rate of contraband.

Snitch thing was good update and lifted my hopes a bit. Maybe in next update we will finally get prisoners who feel like true dangerous criminals. Now i'm controlling bunch of princesses who get upset if their cabbage is not served at exact time they want it. Getting to satisfied prisoners loop and auto manage prison is way too easy.

Maybe the next update...

ps. Seems like i cant save my game.. You did break it after all. Well waiting for the HOTFIX.

Citizen wrote:Please Do Not Add tablet support. The last thing we need is time being taken away from the PC version of prison architect. Not to sound mean, but I didn't pay $29 beans to have a new project started mid-stream.

Also, please stop adding mod support until the bulk of the game is complete since it's likely that each new Alpha Will break existing mods. Just focus on completing A high-quality PC version of prison architect. Then Do mod support then consider a tablet version, but definitely not before! I'd like to see prisoner AI bulked up, we still haven't seen gang activity, guard towers or countless other cool features that should be the core of a prison simulator.

Thank you

Guard towers is something suggested countless times, and sell is, due to people thinking they're original geniuses and not searching ideas. They've already said they won't.

Dutex wrote:This was first time i was bit disappointed by the update..

Ok, extended mod support is nice and will become important part of the game in some point yes. Only i afraid this came too soon.. Lazy developer syndrome which bugs games with too active community is lurking around the corner.(This happened to ArmA III)

But couple of major bugs which were introduced at update 23 are still there making this game, maybe not unplayable but boring to play. Yes, drug and alcohol program and no escort to holding cell bugs are still there and food is still delivered to the storage if it is searched by guards. I haven't seen overdoses nor escape tunnels either. It feels like we went back to the alpha 17? and are still there.

Also bring back the spoons to the canteen! This was not the right way to solve problem with stealing rate of contraband.

Snitch thing was good update and lifted my hopes a bit. Maybe in next update we will finally get prisoners who feel like true dangerous criminals. Now i'm controlling bunch of princesses who get upset if their cabbage is not served at exact time they want it. Getting to satisfied prisoners loop and auto manage prison is way too easy.

Maybe the next update...

ps. Seems like i cant save my game.. You did break it after all. Well waiting for the HOTFIX.

It's not lazy developers. They've done massive updates in the past, and just didn't do as much this time because they didn't. Also, as for spoons. Yes, in theory it's impossible to believe that prisoners wouldn't steal spoons from spoon heaven. However, when you have 200+ prisoners, it gets outrageous fast. If you have ideas, please post them in the big tracker under the suggestion caregory, don't just say YOU DID IT AL WRONG GUYS.

Damn, reform programs still not fixed. I know it's an alpha / early access game and problems are to be expected, but not being able to offer the alcohol and drug programs and have your prisoners go ape-shit and puking all the time is pretty fundamental to the running of the prison and deserves to be addressed.

I didnt say it is lazy developing that they added extended mod support. Its huge thing when you think how much they have done. It is extremely good update to have but as i said i think it came bit too early. There is now danger that they think its not necessary to add some important game aspects because community have already made them. This makes native game bit blunt and missing some key features. I have seen community to get upset because developer have added feature that community have already made. This is the fear i have. But you cant see the future so lets hope the best. After all this is already amazing game.

And about the spoonheaven, i also think the stealing rate of spoons were way too high. At one of my prison there were more stolen spoons than prisoners. Still taking whole spoon supply off the canteen sound bit like artificial fix. But yes i should have post alternative solution, not just say YOU DID IT AL WRONG GUYS. Sorry about that.

I don't like forks/spoons being completely removed from the canteen, just tone the rate of theft down. A few updates back something changed that is causing me to get very poor performance when building new foundations/walls. Every time a worker completes a build task the game freezes for 3 seconds, which turns the game into a slideshow when trying to build. I have a large prison but don't have any performance issues other than when building. I've been holding off on expanding my prison until this gets fixed.

When you save a game, Prison Architect updates the screenshot and creates a file [prison-name].prison-temp. But this file doesn't replace the [prison-name].prison file. Also the [prison-name].prison file seems to be locked by Prison Architect. If you try to replace the file [prison-name].prison with the [prison-name].prison-temp file manually Windows reports the file is open by Prison Architect and you cant delete it.

When you save a game, Prison Architect updates the screenshot and creates a file [prison-name].prison-temp. But this file doesn't replace the [prison-name].prison file. Also the [prison-name].prison file seems to be locked by Prison Architect. If you try to replace the file [prison-name].prison with the [prison-name].prison-temp file manually Windows reports the file is open by Prison Architect and you cant delete it.

Can someone have a look into this or confirm it?

Thanks

It works just fine if I manually delete x.prison and rename x.prison-temp to x.prison.

stroberaver wrote:...A bare cell of 2×3 with nothing but a bed and toilet would provide no recreation needs and make the prisoner very pissed off during bangup or lockup, and slightly pissed off for all routine activities in there (sleeping, free time, etc). Whereas a larger cell with bookshelf and tv and comfy chair would make the prisoner much more amenable and lessen the negative consequences of the prisoner having to spend time in there - with the obvious disadvantages of the extra space required, extra cost of building materials and the cell contents, the extra time taken to search the extra hiding places etc.

Or perhaps it's time to look at introducing a rudimentary gang culture.

I don't think a prison with TVs in the rooms is really realistic, maybe in minimum security. There's nothing to stop you from putting a TV in a cell though I don't know if they'll work - haven't tried it as I don't find it realistic. Bookshelves work though and are one of the highlighted items when you add to a cell, just not required.

Love the idea of gangs, I'll second a vote for that. Shouldn't even require a prisoner to be angry to join, there should be peer pressure to attempt to force them into a gang. It would be nice to see prisoners develop friends and enemies as well - perhaps adding a social need to the game that is satisfied with friends or gang membership.

Haven't looked at the modding stuff yet to see how powerful it is, but perhaps some of these ideas can be implemented as mods for people who want them. Hopefully a lot of stuff can be done with mods and relieve the pressure on the developers to handle all the ideas people come up with and concentrate on the really big stuff.